Chapter Text
PROLOGUE: THE LAST TANK OF GAS
The road used to be Interstate 40. Snake Plissken could still tell by the bones of it — the wide lanes, the dead exit signs, the long shallow curves engineers once designed for people driving eighty miles an hour toward somewhere that mattered.
Now it was just cracked concrete running through scrub desert in western Oklahoma.
Snake’s motorcycle rolled along the shoulder, engine low and careful. Gas was too valuable to waste on speed.
The sky was pale and wide. Wind dragged dust across the highway like ghosts.
Snake squinted through the heat shimmer.
Up ahead, a checkpoint.
He slowed.
Three pickup trucks sat across the highway. Sandbags. Two oil drums burning black smoke. A faded sign that once read REST AREA – 2 MILES had been repainted with thick red letters:
FUEL TAX ZONE
Snake sighed quietly.
He hated taxes.
The men at the checkpoint noticed him about the same time he noticed them.
Rifles came up.
Snake coasted the bike forward, hands loose on the handlebars.
Six men total.
One in an old police vest.
Two young ones with scavenged military rifles.
Three older guys who looked like farmers that had discovered how much easier life was when you pointed guns at travelers.
The man in the vest stepped forward.
“Kill the engine.”
Snake did.
Silence settled over the road.
The wind pushed a loose road map across the asphalt.
“Fuel toll,” the man said. “Two gallons or trade.”
Snake glanced at the trucks. Their engines were cold.
No patrol. Just a toll trap.
He lifted his eyepatch slightly with a finger and scratched underneath.
“Two gallons,” Snake said slowly, “is a lot of gas.”
The man shrugged.
“Road ain’t free anymore.”
Snake looked past him at the horizon.
The road kept going west. Straight. Empty.
Snake liked empty roads.
“Who owns this road?” Snake asked.
The man smirked.
“We do.”
Snake nodded thoughtfully.
“Uh huh.”
The youngest guy shifted nervously. “What’s your name?”
Snake didn’t answer.
The vest guy spoke again. “You payin’ or you turnin’ around.”
Snake leaned back slightly on the bike seat.
“Funny thing about roads,” he said quietly.
The men waited.
“They go both ways.”
The farmer with the shotgun scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Snake nodded toward their trucks.
“Means if you take two gallons from everyone heading west…”
He paused.
“…someone heading east is eventually gonna notice.”
The vest guy’s smile faded a little.
“Not our problem.”
Snake reached slowly into his jacket.
Six rifles tightened.
He pulled out a metal flask.
Opened it.
Took a drink.
Then he tossed it gently toward the man in the vest.
The man caught it instinctively.
He sniffed it.
Whiskey.
The youngest one blinked. “That’s more than two gallons…”
Snake started the bike again.
The engine growled softly.
The man in the vest looked up. “Why’d you give it to us?”
Snake eased the bike forward.
“Because,” Snake said calmly, “you’re about to need it.”
The men frowned.
Snake rolled past them slowly.
The youngest turned.
“What’s that supposed to—”
Then they heard it.
Engines.
Many engines.
Snake didn’t turn around.
He already knew the sound.
Heavy trucks. Diesel. Convoy speed.
The vest guy’s eyes widened.
On the horizon behind them, dust rose like a storm.
A line of armored grain haulers barreling east.
Midwest convoy militia.
Farm country.
And farm country didn’t like road taxes.
Snake spoke over his shoulder as he passed the burning oil drum.
“Road goes both ways.”
Then he opened the throttle.
The motorcycle roared west down the empty highway.
Behind him the men at the checkpoint started shouting.
And far behind them, the convoy thundered closer.
Snake didn’t look back.
He never did.